13 Lessons From My Rooftop: Part-3

Learning that Bathsheba had gone to bed with me out of fear and a sense of loyalty, rather than a mutual desire, hurt my ego badly. She merely wanted to please the king and avoid getting into his bad books, which can be a pretty dangerous undertaking if you could ask Nabal were he alive to tell his story.

I've learnt that when it comes to sexual obsession, men have very little control over themselves. Compared to women, men are actually the weaker vessel.

The only way a natural man can exercise control over his sexual desires is to be tamed by the Spirit of God. But how did I go wrong this time? My walk with God had always been tight and pure, or so I thought. I was beginning to wrestle with a sense of foreboding that my escapade with Bathsheba was an ill wind. My feelings for her had become subdued after I slept with her. A man's sexual desire is like a soap bubble: it flies around so unassailably in the beginning, and then suddenly disappears. I determined that I will put an end to the Bathsheba obsession after our single sexual encounter. As the weeks went by, I eased her out of my mind. But events quickly spun out of control.

Four weeks after my rendezvous with her, Bathsheba sent word to me. She wanted to see me about something urgent. Had she fallen in love with the king after all? With a renewed sense of triumph I got her ushered to the premium chalet and went to meet her.

We exchanged pleasantries after which I took her in my arms and kissed her, holding her longer than was necessary for a normal greeting. There wasn't even the slightest resistance, and this goaded me on. As I did, the animal in me began to wake up, but I knew I had to defy it. I suddenly released her. “No, not again,” I cautioned myself silently.

“What troubles my love?" I asked.

“I'm pregnant, your majesty!”

She might as well have shot me in the head with a pistol hidden in her pants, because that was what I thought happened. When I resurrected from the dead, I broke into a stammer.

“What happened...how...why?” I could hardly recognise my own voice.

“I'd been one week into my monthly purification when we met. Now I’ve missed my time,” she announced helplessly.

I knew I had to quickly regain my composure. I had to speak the right words.

“Do not let it bother you, my love,” I heard myself say, not really sure what I was going to do about it. “You will go back home and I will tell you exactly what you’ll do,” I concluded with some sort of confidence.

After the palace attendants led her out of the chalet, I banged a side cabinet in one rush of rage and nearly hurt my fist. How could one little, tasteless encounter lead to such a massive outcome? What was happening to me? I sat on the edge of the bed and held my head in my hands. It felt as if it was going to fall off.

How was I going to squelch this scandal? How will it be said that the king of Israel sent his subject to war and took his wife? How will it be said that Israel’s most famous king was an adulterer? One act of indiscretion—just one brief isolated moment of loss of mind—brings with it such calamitous end. As my mind waxed in perplexity, I realised I had yet another lesson for you:

Lesson number 8: When the devil is after you he only needs one opportunity, and he knows bloody well how to use it. That is why you must never let your guards down. The devil packs a deadly sucker punch.

Two days later I sent for Bathsheba. It seemed to me she always came to the palace straight from a beauty salon. She came looking temptingly beautiful, completely oblivious of the crisis she was fomenting with her beautiful looks. She appeared to have no other business than to look beautiful! What was wrong with this woman? I was looking to cross one shaky and miserable bridge, and now here she was setting herself up for another sexual assault.

I see that the children of Eve are irredeemably condemned to lust. The women array themselves as sex traps; the men helplessly get caught in them. It is a vicious cycle. Women tempt men far too cruelly with their natural endowments. I summoned all the courage within me to ignore her.

“I've thought up a plan for my son,” I began recklessly. “I will send for your husband and when he comes I will decorate him and bestow on him the king’s recognition for heroic deeds as I promised. Then you will receive him at home, care for him, and lie with him like a wife who is hungry for a husband that has been away too long. Then you will get pregnant for him. Do you understand?”

“Yes, your majesty. But the pregnancy is yours.”

“I know, my love. Uriah will be the boy’s foster father. When he is grown and matured, he will succeed me as king. You will become the queen mother with all the rights and privileges that the palace bestows. And that will be for the rest of your life.”

She smiled, probably more out of amusement than conviction, and then posed a question.

“What if she’s a girl?”

“A girl?” Bloody! I never thought of that, but I was not going to let her know how stupid I felt. I disabused her mind of that thought. In any case, if and when I got to that bridge, I will cross it. I said to her quite brashly, “I know when I've planted a boy in a woman. Just go your way and do as I've told you.”

Uriah turned out to be a tall, stoutly built, and hairy soldier. He was good looking, despite his heavily bearded face—not at all a bad match for a stunningly beautiful woman like Bathsheba. He invited no one to his first recognition and decoration ceremony, not even his wife, which was a great relief. The presence of Bathsheba might have been a personal distraction to me.

He stood as stiff as a ramrod in front of this motley gathering of palace staff as my chief protocol officer reeled off his impressive citation. For a Hittite volunteer in the Israeli army for only two years, Uriah had certainly put together an impressive record of battlefront heroism.

“My lord, I present to you for decoration one of your valiant soldiers, Uriah Urijah!”

The baritone voice of the chief protocol officer rang across the hall, bringing a little smile to Uriah’s bearded face. I rose up and hung a medallion on his neck, and gave him an appreciative kiss. Was I kissing him for his military prowess, or for the pleasure of sharing his wife? I quickly dismissed the accusing thought.

That evening I issued instructions for a small palace reception for Uriah, and a bountiful supply of gifts to escort him to his house.

Early the next day, I made enquiries about him and how he had fared over the previous evening. The reply from my staff was like a blow to my face. Uriah had refused to go to his house! I asked for him to be summoned to me. He came and stood before me, as stiff as ever.

“Urijah, I granted you leave to spend a night in your house before returning to your duties. You've earned it and the whole nation appreciates your service. You must do so tonight. That is an order from the king!”

He bowed reverently and spoke through the massive beards that shielded his mouth. “My lord, my commander and the entire Israeli army are out in the cold war front. How can I allow myself to revel in domestic comfort while battle rages? Remember, my lord, how you have taught us to adhere to the highest level of discipline in the army.” He bowed again.

“I understand, Urijah,” I managed to say. “This time the king himself, the commander in chief, is granting you leave to spend just one night with your wife and family before returning to your duties. You must do so. You have earned it.”

“Yes, my lord.” He took a bow and departed.

Before letting him leave for his home, I'd issued firm instructions for another palace reception for Uriah. My chief chef was under strict instructions to serve him enough liquor to get him so drunk that he will be out of his stubborn mind. They were then to bundle him in his drunken state to his house.

I was to find out later that Uriah, once again, resisted going to his house. What I hadn’t reckoned with was the man’s high level of discipline and dedication to the army. I found out later that, all along, Uriah had understood the order for him to go to his house to be a test of his level of commitment to his military calling. He had been taught to understand that a soldier at war does not dabble in civilian and domestic indulgences.

My careful plot to get Uriah to sleep with his wife had collapsed like a pack of cards.

After his refusal to go home the first day, I'd considered my options should he fail to sleep with his wife. Now he left me with no choice than to deploy plan-B. Uriah would have to die for disobeying the king!

I immediately despatched him back to the battlefront, giving him a sealed confidential missive for Joab to ensure his execution by any means—enemy or friendly fire. My note to Joab was explicit on the manner of Uriah’s deployment. He was to be seen to have died in fierce battle. I'd said in my note that he had disobeyed the king. I let Uriah bear his own death verdict in case he chose to secretly open the letter and see its content. That was certain to make him do what I'd asked of him. But, of course, Uriah was not one to do such a thing. He had chosen to die for being overly disciplined!

But as Uriah left on his fatal mission, I had the strongest attack of conscience I'd felt yet in recent times—I was sending an innocent man to the gallows, causing him to bear his own death sentence. As I'd learned to do in recent times when my conscience spoke, I quickly dismissed the thought. If he had not disobeyed the king, I rationalised, he wouldn’t have to die. He was the architect of his own death, I concluded defiantly. And this leads me to yet another important lesson for you:

Lesson number 9: Do not be so conceited that you can justify every evil action. Even a dead conscience speaks from its grave.

And Uriah died in a tactless military confrontation, along with many other Israeli soldiers whose fortuitous death came about by the death sentence on one innocent man.

The telegraphic message from Joab was a chilling one: “My lord, we have had a bloody day in battle,” the note said. “Scores of your gallant soldiers have fallen, and so has your hero, Uriah.”

As I stared at the document that bore Uriah’s obituary, I saw two hands that were soaked in and dripping with blood. They were my hands! Yes, this was what the Lord had seen when He said human blood is sacred. Uriah’s blood was already exacting its vengeance.

For several weeks I mourned deeply for Uriah, and so did hapless Bathsheba. For the first time in many weeks, I was conscience stricken. Things had gone terribly awry.

Enough of the duplicity, I decided. It was time for reconciliation and damage control. Therefore I instituted a foundation for the families of Uriah and all the breadwinners whose deaths I had needlessly engineered. To perpetuate Uriah’s lineage, and in memory of his heroic service, I announced to the nation that I was taking Bathsheba, Uriah’s widow, to be my wife and a queen in the palace, so that I could care for her. Many in the land hailed this as a benevolent and appropriate honour to Uriah’s memory. But Bathsheba and I knew better.

Bathsheba bore me a son. She named him Junior; I named him Solomon, meaning peace, for I was hungry for peace in my soul, the peace I'd murdered.

(Culled from my book Laughing Over Serious Matters. To read other articles take this link: https://www.chrisekpekurede.com/blog)